AFL Football State of Origin - Part 1
I will start with a quote from football historian Mr John Devany and most of the AFL football public would agree and I certainly do.
“Some of the state of origin contests which took place during the 1980’s constituted arguably the finest expositions of the game ever seen”.
The AFL have decided that on May 10th 2008 they will celebrate 150 years of Australian Rules Football with a game between Victoria and “The All Stars” or “Dream Team“. The announcement of this game has brought with it some high profile abuse towards the AFL. Most notably Graham Cornes and West Australian Graham Moss.
For all you state of origin supporters out there you are going to enjoy these series of articles. At the end of this article you can revisit one of my most memorable state of origin days in a short video.
Let’s start with a bit of State of Origin history:
1879 -1889
Victoria dominated the first 100 years of interstate football, and is highlighted in the first ever interstate game which was held on Tuesday, July 1, 1879 at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground. The final score in that game was Victoria 7.14 to South Australia 0.3. Interestingly enough the actual margin was 7 goals because they didn’t count the point unless both teams scored the same number of goals.
1890 – 1907
Victoria dominance faltered in the 1890’s, when other states / colonies recorded wins over the then VFA. South Australia in 1890 and 1891 and Tasmania in Hobart in 1893 (twice). Western Australia played it’s first two interstate games in 1904 which included a win over SA.
1977 – 1999
By the 1970’s Victorian clubs were getting their hands on the best interstate players and hence Victoria dominated state games. It was Western Australia who stated to campaign for players to be selected according to state-of-origin rules. It took 2 years before an agreement was reached.
To demonstrate how flawed the system was before the rules were changed have a look at these results:
- On 25 June 1977 VFL 23.16 (154) defeated Western Australia 13.13 (91) - a margin of 63 points
- On 8 October 1977 Western Australia 23.13 (151) defeated Victoria 8.9 (57) - a margin of 94 points, representing an overall turn around of 157 points
The first game was when WA fielded a side entirely of home-based players. The second was when the WA player that were playing in Victoria returned to WA for the state game.
Very persuasive argument !! Wouldn’t you think?
Western Australia and South Australia now began to win many of their games against Victoria.
In 1989 a crowd of 91,960 people, the largest crowd at a State of Origin Game, witnessed the likes of Ablett, Lockett, Dunstall, Daniher, Jarman, Kernahan, Bradley. But the selections of Dunstall and Daniher (from Queensland and NSW) reiterated the flaws that still existed in the selection rules. Mind you the following year the NSW team was allowed to include any player who had played for Sydney. Then who can forget the uproar about the selections of Wayne Carey who was selected for South Australia but was born in NSW.
During the 1990’s the game was evolving into a truly national competition and State of Origin declined in importance. There were increasing numbers of withdrawals by player because they were under pressure from their clubs over concerns for injury.
In the next Part 2 this article series I will bring you some more memorable moments in State of Origin history.
I will leave you with some footage of what is probably the most memorable day is State of Origin history.
[...] AFL Football State of Origin - Part 1 AFL State of Origin Football Part 2 - EJ Whitten & Foss Williams Medalists AFL State of Origin Football Part 3 - Graham Moss and Alex Jesaulenko Medal Did you like this article? Subscribe to my RSS Feed [...]